In a message dated 12/02/2000 4:07:41 PM Eastern Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: << PS I saw Nixon heroically and repeatedly refuse mob help in the face of his apoplectic GOP handlers in Oct 1960. He even uttered these exact words, "I'd rather (big gasp) lose than win that way." After that moment, the far right NEVER trusted Nixon and kept him under constant surveillance. >> Hmmm, (from pages 213 through 217 of Anthony Summer's The Arrogence of Power-The Secret World of Richard Nixon- Viking-2000) snip> For several anxious days, the Democrats worried that Nixon would challenge the result. He did not, and later claimed not to do so because he felt he "could not subject the country to such a situation." Although some considered this Nixon's "finest hour." his friend, writer Ralph de Toledano claimed the opposite was true. "Nixon was bitter," he said. "I discussed it with him...He pressed for the investigation and it was Eisenhower who said, 'No, it will tear the country apart." At the time, Nixon and the people around him were furious at Eisenhower.... Both Kennedy and Nixon were touched by the tentacles of the Mafia...Nixon was also vulnerable. Before the 1960 campaign started, the author was told, an informant passed documentation to Robert Kennedy indicating that Meyer Lansky's people had footed Nixon's bill on a visit to Cuba. The candidate's brother made no use of the information, probably because his brother had himself been compromised in Cuba when Lansky fixed him up with women there. Florida mob boss Santo Trafficante, who was aware of that episode, despised Kennedy, and favored Nixon. "Santo," recalled his attorney Frank Ragano, "viewed Nixon as a realistic, conservative politician who was 'not a zealot' and would not be hard on him and his mob friends. The Mafia had little to fear from Nixon." "We'll contribute to Nixon too...We'll hedge our bets. Just like we did out in California when Nixon was running for senator...you don't what in the hell Jack will do if he gets elected. With Nixon, you know where you stand." So said Giancana before the 1960 election, according to his brother Chuck. "Marcello and I," Giancana allegedly added, "are giving the Nixon campaign a million bucks." Carlos Marcello, Mafia boss of New Orleans and much of the southern US, did reportedly make a massive donation to Nixon that year. According to a man who said he was present when the money exchanged hands, Marcello did so in September, at a meeting in Lafayette, Louisiana. "I was right there, listening to the conversation," said the witness. "Marcello had a suitcase filled with five hundred dollars cash, which was going to Nixon...the other half was coming from the mob boys in New Jersey and Florida/ The suitcase containing the money was handed to Teamsters leader Jimmy Hoffa, and the witness who said he saw the transaction was Edward Partin, a close Hoffa associate who later turned informant..." In 1960, no reports ever surfaced about help from organized crime for either candidate. Instead, thanks to yet more bad luck and bad judgment, and another skeleton came rattling out of the Nixon closet- The $205,000 Hughes loan from 4 years before was about to surface." Though I guess you were there to judge NIxon sincerity,KT, and we all know Nixon never told a lie to anyone with that straight in the face manner of his or anything. (Summers-pgs. 2-3) "Richard Nixon's life was shot through with lies both great and small, whether outright lying, skirting the truth, or embroidering it. It was his lying that most damaged him in during Watergate. Yet Nixon even lied to the man whom he entrusted his fate in his time of crisis, his Watergate lawyer Fred Buzhardt. Buzhardt later remembered the president as the "most transparent liar he had ever met."...In private Nixon sometimes dropped all pretence at honesty. Lying as a political ploy," he would say, "is all part of the game." Peace, Preston -------------------------- eGroups Sponsor -------------------------~-~> <FONT COLOR="#000099">eLerts It's Easy. It's Fun. Best of All, it's Free! </FONT><A HREF="http://click.egroups.com/1/9699/0/_/475667/_/975804228/"><B>Click Here!</B></A> ---------------------------------------------------------------------_->
